


the amendments of marriage

by Humanities_Handbag



Category: Hotel Transylvania (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Arranged Marriage, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Idiots in Love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-19
Updated: 2019-02-10
Packaged: 2019-08-25 18:51:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16666300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Humanities_Handbag/pseuds/Humanities_Handbag
Summary: Their ancestors arranged a marriage. Hundreds of years later, hotel owner Dracula and vampire hunter Ericka are the unlucky contenders.





	1. A Letter, a Call, and a Broken Desk

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TwinklingCupcake](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TwinklingCupcake/gifts).



It may have been a total mistake. A complete error in judgment on the part of relatives so far down the line, they didn’t matter anymore. An elder of the Dracul line and a patriarch of the Van Helsing clan, Gabriel, were trying their best to create some sort of peace between the two before things got out of hand.

They'd met on the night of the full moon, leaving stakes behind and promising biblically that no teeth would be sheathed. “Van Helsing,” the elder would nod to the other, sitting across from one another at a squat wooden table. He was hundreds of years older than the human; withering and twisted and dying, but not so much dead that he couldn’t at least sip at wine and sign documents. “I’ve got years left. I’d like to leave them in relative peace.”

“As would I,” agreed the Van Helsing. He’d seen his children fester in obsessions, and he'd had enough. “So, what are we going to do about it.”

The Vampire hummed, twisting his wine glass to watch the legs trickle down. “I’ve been thinking… Perhaps a… _union_ of sorts.”

“Elaborate-”

“The Dracul clan is blessed with many a healthy male. We can take advantage of that.”

“A _marriage_ .” Van Helsing turned the idea over in his head. It had been some time since there’d been a woman born. Not since his aunt, a prolific Vampire Slayer. And the last babe to be born, only a few years old now, was a boy- Abraham. Still… “It might not be the _worst_ idea.”

“It’s the _only_ idea,” Dracul stressed. “Unless you have anything better?”

He didn’t.

And so it was arranged.

The next female born in the Van Helsing line, when they were of age, would be paired with the current Patriarch of the Dracul clan. They signed the paperwork, shook hands, and expected that things would change.

Nothing changed. At all.

Baby after baby born to the Van Helsing's was male. And as years passed, the memory of the treaty faded. Though its legality didn’t.

Still- Dracula himself had no idea of its existence by the time he’d married his wife and had a child and been hunted by every pesky Van Helsing left in their family. Things tinkered down. Lives were lead. He had a child and then lost a wife. He was depressed, and then he wasn’t. His daughter found a husband, he had a grandchild.

Across the oceans, another baby born long ago, the first female in her clan for hundreds of years, grew up under the careful eye of her great-great-grandfather. Learned how to be a monster hunter, received a boating license, and planned the demise of one Count Dracula.

“It’ll be so perfect,” she’d said, twisting her hands together and looking over the board they kept in the hull of their ship. “When we finally stick a stake through his smug heart.” The corkboard was line with pictures of Dracula. She’d grown up staring at that smile, those teeth; despising and fearing it. Even then, it made her spine crawl.

“Yes, Ericka,” her great-great-grandfather would say. “And soon, soon you’ll be the one to finish him.”

And they’d believed that, too. One family preparing for revenge, the other living their (undead) life.

And then

And then

And _then_

The Letter had arrived.

Apparently Dracula’s estate, upon the addition of one Johnathan, was being slowly combed through. Dracula had wanted to find some old documents that might have given him a clue of investment opportunities or heritages to pin to Dennis’ name. A slow process. But one he was sure would bring him nothing but good fortune.

It would appear he was wrong about that.

His lawyers had found the documents, and had contacted both families separately without delay.

“It would seem, Sir, that you’re due to meet your… erm… betrothed?” the sweaty, nervous lawyer said, standing in front of a fuming Dracula’s front desk.

“ _What_!?”

“Your… your betrothed? Your fiance? Your… to-be wife?”

Dracula had blinked, gaped, and tried his best to lock his jaw back into place, but it didn’t want to move. “What…?” he asked again, numbly. It wasn’t a busy season, and a few monsters and humans milled about. One or two looked over papers and itineraries curiously, but eventually pulled their attention back to their own affairs.

The lawyer standing in front of him (in a gaudy green suit that Dracula would remember forever) wiped his brow on his sleeve. He was human, and appeared to be regretting taking on the Dracula case by the second. No pay was worth being drained of blood. “I’m so sorry,” he said, attempting a smile. “It’s really nothing I could do-”

“I’m _betrothed_.”

“Technically _she’s_ betrothed,” he corrected, voice shaking. “You’re, _uh_ , in charge of her _estate_. Her included.”

“... _what_ …?”

“It’s here, in the Contract.” He waved it about. It was a copy, scanned. The original had been to ancient to tote around. “Her estate, everything- it all technically belongs to you, though I doubt there’s much there, we’ve already checked her over and she doesn’t have much.”

The Count ducked his head into his palm. The room felt too small. “So,” he said, weakly, “this Contract is _real_ then. It’s not some _joke_ . I’m not on a- a- a _prank_ show or something?”

“Afraid not, sir. This is real. And legally binding, too, apparently. They didn’t miss a step. Your ancestors were _very_ thorough.”

“Good for them.”

Dracula groaned and rubbed his face and swore that his ancestors had been absolute off their rockers. Shit, old people sucked. “Fine- okay-” He breathed. The first step, before anything else, was to stay calm. His ancestors had royally fucked him over. But this was the here and now, and all that mattered was breathing and moving on through. He pressed his palms flat to the desk. “I think the best case scenario before we do anything else would be to, I don’t know… talk to this person first? My...” he tests the word, choking on it. “ _Betrothed_.”

The lawyer had nodded, and swallowed hard. “Well, sir- _Count_ \- uh. That’s the other thing.”

The lawyer told him the name.

The count threw the front desk across the lobby and it smashed and splintered against the back wall.

* * *

 

Across an ocean, Ericka was getting a similar call. Docked for the week to replenish supplies, her phone had popped up an email with a subject line that screamed URGENT PLEASE REVIEW. Which was rare. Especially when you made it your business to _not be_ in anyone’s business.

It had been a PDF from a law office located somewhere in Transylvania, which had been enough to raise her interest (and her eyebrows) and she’d opened it, hiding her screen behind the cupped palm of her hand to shield it from the sun.

_Ericka Van Helsing,_

_Please contact the offices of Gheorghe and Vasil as soon as is possible._

There was a phone number and a fax, and she sat on a bench just beyond the dock, watching her grandfather in a trench coat try to haggle with a merchant over a couple pounds of fresh haddock. Clicking the phone number, sitting back against the salt worn wood, she waited through the rings.

“-ello?” They answered on the third.

“Hi- um- I got an email?” Her grandfather was not faring well at _all_ with his negotiations and was waving his arms around, screaming. The fishermen looked unimpressed. “This is Ericka Van Helsing-”

The sound on the other end was something like a vicious cough and a sudden inhale of something very hot. The man on the other hand heaved. “ _Are you okay!”_

 _“Fine,”_ he choked. “ _I’m fine! I just didn’t expect_ -” he coughed again. “Oh my- oh… oh my. Um. I didn’t expect you to call us so soon.”

“Well, you said _urgent. So_.”

“Right,” he rasped. “Right. Well. Um. I’m glad you called.” He cleared his throat. “Ericka Van Helsing, my name is Geoffrey Vasil _._ I contacted you because there’s been a development with one of my clients. Someone who lives in-district and out of many an unfortunate circumstance, it seems as if it’s included you by _chance_.” He laughed an uncomfortable and pitched sort of laugh.

Ericka sat back harder against the bench. The wood pressed bruises into her skin, and her fingers held tighter to the phone. Something about the call felt apocalyptic. What was the rule if you were a captain and you saw a storm? She breathed deep; Secure everything, take the wheel, keep calm. She breathed again.

_Keep calm._

_It’s probably nothing._

_Just keep calm_.

“Who’s your client?”

“Well, that’s the thing. My- my client is… um… you’ve probably heard of him? He owns the hotel here in Transylvania-”

She hadn’t. It had been ages since her grandfather had stepped into the Transylvanian territory, and though it had long been a subject of interest, she’d been warned from crossing any of the borders. _Not until we’re ready_ , he’d always said. She tapped her foot. “Sorry. No.”

“Oh… oh you don’t? Really? I thought that you of all people…” He laughed again, and she felt the storm darken. The lawyer sounded like his hands were shaking. And when he does say the name - “Count Dracula, Miss. It’s Count Dracula” - the storm inside her turns into something deep and red and ancient.

Van Helsing’s failing haggles are cut short by a short shocked noise from the dock, and he looks over his shoulder to see his granddaughter wide eyed, stalking a furious path back up the ships plank. He called for her, but she didn’t hear, one hand clasped around the phone, the other tugging her hair.

He wouldn’t hear her when she ducked her face and hissed, “what the fuck do you mean _Dracula_.”

“Miss, please! Try to calm down!”

“Do _you know who I am!?”_

“ _Of course I do!_ ”

“Then I’d be _very careful_ when you tell me to _calm down_.”

“Miss, _please!_ ” He’s begging, pleading, twisting his fingers raw on the other end. “Please understand, this was all coincidental! There was a document signed so, so long ago and the first female born on your end was all that they said, and since _you’re_ the first female you got sort of… caught.” 

Ericka breathed out a heavy shudder, gritting her teeth, storming across the ships deck. It was bordering on early afternoon and the sun was too hot blazing down towards her. She was on fire. She was a raging, fuming, Vampire-Killing fire. “So I got caught in a _document_. And you can’t just write me out? Wait for someone else.”

“Afraid we can’t, miss. It was notarized and everything. Whoever these ancestors were, they didn’t miss a step. Dotted all their i’s.”

“Well isn’t that fucking great for them.” She rubbed her temples. Leaning against the rail of the ship, looking down at the water, she tapped her foot too-hard against the floor. They were between cruises, and the ship was eerily silent and vacant with only the two of them occupying it. Her thoughts were screaming. She squeezed her eyes shut. “What exactly was this document for. And _please_ don’t say some sort of ritual sacrifice or whatever, because I swear-”

“Oh _no_ , Miss. Nothing like that.” He paused, and there was a muted tapping sound. She could almost see him sweating through the sound waves. “Um… you may want to sit?”

“Oh for-”

“ _Marriage._ ” He spits out the word, like he’s afraid.

He has good reason to be.

But he has little right.

Ericka’s throat sticks closed. The waves lap the sides of the ship and the silence is overwhelming and she can’t, she can’t, she can’t _breathe_ when she manages a ragged little “excuse me”. The world is spinning, and it’s all she can do not to drop her phone into the deep waters below.

“It’s a marriage arrangement, ma’am. I’m- I’m so sorry-”

“It’s 2018,” she croaks. “It’s the 21st century and you’re honoring some old as shit _marriage agreement_.”

“It’s legally binding, ma’am.” He’s talking faster now. Hurrying through it all. “Everything- your estate, your name, whatever you own-”

“No.”

“-he technically has a legal claim-”

“ _No_.”

“Miss, please, just let me-”

“You know who I am,” she says again, closing her eyes. Just moments ago she’d been fire. And now? Now she’s burning. She’s ash, simmering into nothing. “I’m making plans to _kill_ him.”

“I know-”

“Our families are at _war_.”

“I _know_.”

“I’m… I’m trying to finish a legacy and you’re telling me I have to…” she ends the sentence with a laugh that sounds a bit too hysterical. “Oh my god!”

Mr. Vasil was at least empathetic enough to apologize a few more times, sounding more distressed than he should. It’s not his life. Not his sentence. “That’s why I’m calling, Miss Van Helsing. We’ve alerted Dracula of the issue and he’s very much in the same position you are. And what I’m recommending is that, if we can find some sort of agreement between the two of you, perhaps we can annul the entire affair without much fuss at all.” He swallows. “I don’t know what I can do about the estate. That’ll- that’ll be up to him…”  

She didn’t answer. Couldn’t answer.

There was an ocean above her head, around her lungs; she was drowning on something that wouldn’t release.

“It’s just going to require some agreements,” he explained hurriedly. “And _this_ is where things get a little bit unfortunate again.” She closed her eyes. Her pulse was heavy in her ears. “It’s a grandfathered Contract. So new laws or not, it has to be honored as it was written. The agreements are going to have to come entirely from him, I’m afraid. Being the male, and all. He owns what you own. His say is the final one.” He stops a moment and then says again, “I’m sorry.”

Ericka cursed the sexist bastards who she shared blood with, kicking one of the rails with her boot, hissing when it squished her big toe. She’s afraid to ask the question, but she knows she has to. “What does that mean? For me?”

Mr. Vasil sighed. He sounded tired and wrung out, and the hysteria they’d both shared moments ago (his from having to deliver, and hers from being the victim) was beginning to dissipate into something softer and sadder and deep. “It means that he’ll get the full say of what happens. The exemptions, the new additions, where and who your estate goes to- it’ll be his to decide. You’ll have some say in denying, but it’ll be his word last.” She hears the shuffling of documents. “It was meant to create a union of sorts, long ago. To combine the families by giving legal control to one. One unit. But now…” he breathes. “Now it’s just made a big mess that I have to abide by, unfortunately.”

Ericka lowers her head. Her forehead rests on the guardrail. It’s rusted and cool, and it scrapes her forehead. “ _Why._ ”

“Because that’s just how it was written. And… and I’m sorry.”

“Would killing him work in this case? If I just went and did it?” She’s only half joking.

“I think that might just make things worse.” He still sounded sad, but there was something of a smile in his voice. Well, at least one of them was feeling a little better. “The best thing you can do now, Miss Van Helsing, is meet with Dracula. I’m more than happy to pass along your number. He’s requested it already. I just need your permission-”

Before he can finish she’s already rattling off the digit and there’s the sound of a pen scraping to catch them all. He thanks her, apologizes again, and promises that she’ll hear from him and his client soon.

She doesn’t say anything and hangs up before he can finish.

When she opens her eyes again, the world looks darker.

“Ericka?” Her grandfather rolls across the deck. There’s a bag of fish in his hand. Apparently, he’d settled. Like he always did.

( _Well_ , she thinks sourly, _at least some things stay the same_ ).

“I heard shouting. Is everything alright.”

She turns around, her back against the rail, extending her feet for balance. “No.”

“Oh…”

He looks at her like he’s waiting for an answer. She’s not sure she wants to give one. “There’s been sort of an incident." The air is thick. Or maybe it's just harder to breathe. "I’ve been pushed into a Contract, apparently. A _marriage_ Contract from a bazillion years ago. Because our family has always been so fucking great, apparently.” She’s trying not to cry, and she swipes at the angry heat building behind her eyes. Her tongue is acidic. “And we might lose everything if things go the way I think they might. Not sure if my new husband's love for you has expired yet.” She laughed. It came out molten.

“Wait. _What_?”

“I’ve been assigned a husband.”

(And a keeper. And a fucking _jailor_ )

“You’ve... you’ve what?”

The email is still on her screen and her stomach turns. “Count Dracula.”

Her grandfather throws the bag of fish overboard.

* * *

 “Well shoot…” says her grandfather that night over a cup of whiskey. She hasn’t seen him drink in years.

“Yeah.” She drains her second glass and goes in for her third. It sits heavy in her stomach, and her head is fuzzy, but she’s glad for it. They’re distractions, even if they aren’t comfortable ones. “This royally sucks.”

He murmurs his agreement.

“We’re going to have to find a way to get out of it,” she adds. “Because apparently killing won't work. Not until after we annul it. Even if he dies, his estate still picks ours up. We’d lose it all to his kids, his relatives. It won’t matter.” She runs her tongue over her teeth. “So fighting might be the only way out. Fight for everything we’ve got. And what I’ve got.”

“Oh my…”

“But after, no matter what happens… I’m gonna kill him. At least I’ve got a new reason to.”  

“ _If we’re even allowed to, after_.” He swirls the whiskey around, watching it. It’s expensive stuff, and he smacks his lips after another sip. “I can’t imagine one of his additions won't be about what we do with our time. Hunting wise.” He shrugged. “The legacy might as well be over.”

“... yeah.”

“Let’s just hope you don’t end up with fangs lodged in your neck.” She blames her grandfather's cruelty on his age and grits her teeth to keep tears from rising again. His own eyes are a curious sort of scared when he asks “do you think that might be one of the terms, Ericka?”

She’s glad for the alcohol more than ever, then. It keeps her from breaking apart entirely.

And so she pours another drink and hopes it gets the image of fangs out of her mind. 

* * *

 Mavis is beyond furious. “So you’re saying,” she asks her father, sitting beside Dennis, who’s occupied with a coloring page, “that because of our great-great-great whatever, you’re going to have to marry a Van Helsing!?”

“No, honey. Because of our _great-great-great whatever_ , I’m going to have to _meet_ a Van Helsing.” He’s miserably draining another glass of blood. He’d usually drink the artificial stuff, but goat’s blood had a better kick, and he needed it now more than ever. “And I’ll figure out what arrangements we can make to end it.”

Mavis glares down at her hands. “I still don’t like it.”

From next to her, Johnathan picks up a crayon and helps Dennis with a small detail he can’t seem to get. “It’s really sort of screwed up.”

“Majorly,” agreed Mavis. “ _Majorly_ screwed up.” She sighed. “So, what do we do now?”

Dracula taps his fingers against the glass. “I guess I meet her. Talk. She may have to come here and fill out paperwork with me after I agree on terms.”

“Have you decided on terms?”

He nods. “A few.”

He thought it might be good to create some boundaries; mental and physical. He wasn’t sure if he could still _banish_ her family. But from what his lawyer had said over the phone, she was still very intent on revenge. Something about her great-grandfather and a legacy. So maybe keeping her away from Transylvania and his family could be something to consider.

His lawyer had sent over her information, too; she was a Captain, a title that had a little too much weight for his comfort. He thought about the idea of her using her fancy shmancy cruise ship to lure monsters on and shuddered.

He reminded himself to jot down any ideas later, focusing on Mavis again. “I’m supposed to call her sometime next week. She’ll be coming here to work out some of the details.”

Mavis made a sound like she was choking on air. “Wait- she’s coming _here_!”

“She has to, Mavis.”

“ _Totally uncool_ ,” said Johnny, switching his color from purple to green.

“Understatement, Johnny.” She rubbed her brow. “Wonderful. So you’re technically engaged to your arch nemesis’ descendant who wants to kill you and you’re just going to hand her a room key?”

“I don’t have much of a choice here, honey bat.”

She lay her hands flat on the table and growled. “You have _plenty_ of choices. Just… I don’t know… take your share of her stupid estate and move on.”

He smiled mournfully and reached out, covering her hand with his. “That’s not how this works. She has to be here to sign the papers for anything to happen, sweetheart. It’s just what has to happen.”

Mavis sighs, but nods, defeat settling against the lines on her face. She tries to smile, and he appreciates her effort. “Then… I guess we’d better get ready for some new guests.”

He squeezes her hand. “That’s my girl.”  

* * *

 

He has a long talk with his lawyers before. And they advise him on _everything_. Ericka Van Helsing, who he’s never met, has never seen, but has already crafted a pretty clear picture of in his head (rotting teeth, huge hands, evil smile) and before he calls her he wants to be prepared. Victor Gheorghe was a big man, in business with Geoffrey Vasil, and showed it more than his partner could. He wore rings on his fingers, and his tie was patterned and he smelled of cologne and coffee and cigars.

His decadence rivaled that of the count, and Dracula often felt the need to wear his best when the human lawyer, who helped keep his estate in order, came around. He arrived that day wearing royal blue, hair slicked back. Dracula fiddled with the clip on his best cape.

“Count Dracula,” he’d said, laying down his briefcase. “It would seem as if your predecessors have gotten you into a sticky situation.”

“The stickiest,” Dracula muttered. They’d adjourned to the hotel library, and had politely asked the patrons there to leave. It’s quiet, and the doors are locked, and there’s no one else save for a stoic and still suit of armor at the door. “All I need is to figure out how to do this. I’m lost, and I don’t want to go into this blind.”

Victor Gheorghe nodded. “My partner has been speaking to the Van Helsing, and she’s been made aware of her side of things. Now, on your side.” He takes out a pad of paper and a pen and clicks it twice. “Your entitled to some things automatically. Her estate, namely. And should you marry her via the Contracts terms-”

“Not happening.”

“- it would dissolve her title and legacy entirely. But, like you said…” he clicked his pen twice more. “That won’t be happening.”

“Right,” agreed Dracula, loosening his cravat. It was out of the question. He wouldn’t -couldn’t- tie himself to that name.

His lawyer didn’t press, scratching out a few words and nodding to himself. “We can at least prepare you for what you _will_ receive. And what sorts of terms you wanted to set up. Did you have any idea.”

Dracula did have some idea, and he names them, drumming his fingers against the table.

Maybe stripping her of her title…

Her name, too. That would have to go.

Gheorghe advised him about possession laws, and he’d kept those in the back of his head but wasn’t sure he was cruel enough to dissolve her assets towards his. Though if her family's history was any indication of her character, then maybe he wouldn't protest to it too much. Well earned reward for past wrongs wasn’t something he’d object to entirely…

“It’s not a bad idea,” says Gheorghe, nodding. “Your entitled to some compensation for grievances. And from what you’ve told us, her family is nothing _but_ grievances.” He writes it down and grins. Dracula clicked his own teeth together, feeling fangs brush his lip. He always thought lawyers looked like sharks, and it’s making him nervous. “To be perfectly frank, Count Dracula, I think what you’ve got here is a wonderful opportunity.” He wrote something down onto the pad. “It’s too easy an argument. You hold most of the power here. And when she does eventually come to argue her side, there’s little you’ll need to do. I’d say you could walk away from this with everything she’s got.”

Dracula hates that there’s a little part of him that sparks in satisfaction.

“Your ancestors may just have done you a huge favor,” Gheorghe says. He rips the paper clean from the pad. Dracula looks at it when it’s passed to him. A list of demands scrawled neatly down the page.

_Preferred terms of the amended agreement_

_-Ericka Van Helsing’s name should be stripped._

_-All assets associated with the Van Helsing line should be revoked and dissolved into the Dracul estate_

_-The title of Captain should be considered for repeal_

_-Marriage is not for consideration_

Count Dracula isn’t sure about how he feels with most of the list. Except for the last piece. “I’ll talk to her when she arrives. I’m sure she’s got some ideas.”

Gheorghe laughed. “Of course she will. It all depends on whether or not you should care.” He stands up, straightens his tie, and shakes Dracula’s hand. “Remember,” he says as he’s being lead out of the library, “she’s the one who’s from the bad family here. You’re not the monster, this time.” And he ducks out, nodding to some of the guests wandering the corridors.

Dracula mulls that over in his head, standing in the doorway to the library.

There was a certain amount of truth to it, wasn’t there? It had been her family to cause him years of grief, years of mistrust. They deserved whatever they got.

Still. _You’re not the monster, this time_ rings in his head the rest of the day, and he settles back on it until it sits, a heavyweight against his lungs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 


	2. A Phone, A Room, and (not so) Happy Travels

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dracula and Ericka finally meet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Her grandfather was not happy about it. And he made that clear in more than a few less-than-subtle comments snapped over empty air. 

“We’ll have to go prepared,” he told her while she packed their bags. “You’re sure we couldn’t just stay in a motel somewhere?”

“It’s part of his rules, Grandfather. If I could have, I would have.”

He hummed, whirring around the room to help collect books and clothes, passing them to her. “Definitely intent there, then.”

She nodded. 

“You think it’s a trap?”

He laughed, a dry sound. Like leaves underfoot. “I  _ know _ it’s a trap. Years hunting him can teach you that well enough. Vampires are territorial in their patterns. Their nest is the ultimate bounty. Any Hunter can tell you that.”

“You never found his?”

“Never.” He exhaled, rubbing his eyes. “The one thing I never managed to do. Find the blasted monsters base. Could have stopped this whole thing right then and there if I could just-”

“And he’s just letting us walk in,” she said, cutting her grandfather off with her own icy realization. 

The room chilled. Her spine crawled. And from the look of her grandfather's face, he wasn’t feeling too excited about the idea either. “The most precious place to a Vampire, and he’s just inviting us through. Why?”

Her grandfather shrugged. “A trap,” he said sensibly. 

She laughed; a sad, strained noise. “How are you so  _ calm _ about this.” Her hands fisted, nails digging deep. “How are you taking this so lightly.”

Her grandfather smiled. Something mournful flashed in his eyes. “My dear,” he said. “I’m past my prime. I don’t know how much time I’ve got left. Not sure how much time I  _ want _ to have left. If something happens to me…” he opened his hands and flattened his palms, as if to say  _ ce la vie _ . “It’s you who’s got to be worried.” He tapped the side of his neck casually. “I’d watch your back once we get there, Ericka Dear. Watch yourself closely.”

She thought about that well into the night when they finally left for the airport early in the dark morning. Thought about her future. 

Thought about her grandfather's past. 

“You should be more worried for me,” she said to him once the plane landed. The only thing she’d said to him since they’d taken off and a rare display of emotion towards the man who raised her. Pleading. Longing.  _ Please. Please. Please care. _

He took his bag with a wry grin. “Ericka,” he crooned. “Of course I’m worried. You’re letting my legacy die with you.” And he rolled past, calling out from behind him. “Maybe try to stay alive long enough to carry it on, Dear. I’d hate for all my work to waste away.”

She gripped her luggage tight and followed him, squeezing her eyes shut for just a moment and breathing deep. She has a future to secure, and she can’t do that while her heart beats a frantic, terrified, funeral march in her chest. 

* * *

 

Dracula had stayed up all day thinking about it. 

There wasn’t much of a chance for sleep when the idea of your sworn enemy and his descendants were just hours away from your home. 

He’d had every intention of sending them to some Motel on the outskirts. A terrible place he knew was at the top of the list, where the owner barely washed the sheets and the carpets smelled faintly of bleach and stale romance. A perfect place to put your nemesis, he’d thought. 

It had been his lawyer who said otherwise. 

“I think it may be wise to keep her under your own roof,” said Gheorghe over the phone days before Dracula had spoken to Ericka. Dracula had nearly spit out his blood beater. 

“ _ Excuse me _ ?” He thwacked his chest a few times, coughing. The taste of rust rose up from the back of his throat. “You want me to do  _ what _ ?”

“I know it seems a little strange-”

“Insane!” he countered. “Insane is what it seems!”

“Dracula, please, just consider-”

Dracula shook his head fast enough that his hair whipped the receiver and the lawyer on the other end went silent. “You’re human,” Dracula said, finally, sinking his teeth into each word. “You don’t know how it is for us-”

“I think I can underst-”

“You can’t,” the Vampire snapped. The lawyer fell silent again. “You can’t understand. Years of  _ Your Kind _ tracking us. Hunting us. Our homes, our nests, are our sanctuaries. We don’t just open the gates for humans to pass through. Why not hand them a stake before they waltz in for good measure!”

“Come on,” said Gheorghe. “It’s not like that anymore.”

“Isn’t it? You can tell me, right now, that it isn’t like that? That there’s still not hatred and persecution in this world?”

Gheorghe said nothing, but Dracula could hear him chewing on the end of his cigarette, chomping on the end and swallowing the tobacco that oozed against his tongue. 

“This can’t happen. I won't let them near my family. I  _ can’t _ let them near my family. Who knows what they’ll do.”

“And yet,” said Gheorghe, “you have all the control.”

Which was true. 

Still- his daughter hadn’t liked the idea. No one had. 

And when he told them what would happen, that the Van Helsing’s would be bunking in rooms in the hotel, there was a guarded feeling that went up from all the guests that knew. More than a few checked out. His friends, loyal as they were, stayed. But they requested extra locks be put on the doors. 

He was happy to oblige. 

* * *

 

Mavis helped him pick out the rooms. 

Maybe it was a little cruel of them to pick the worst rooms in the hotel, but they didn’t care much. 

“Don’t know why we didn’t renovate these years ago,” he grunted, shoving the key into the well worn lock and jiggling it a few times to get it to work. The ancient rooms on the top west wing were severely neglected. Had been since a bad earthquake had shook the hotel seventy or so years ago. They’d shut down the rooms highest up for fear of catastrophe that had never arrived. 

He opened the door and he and his daughter stepped in, looking around. 

It was freezing. And most everything was covered in dust. 

“Seems like what they deserve,” said Mavis, dragging her finger across a table, leaving behind a trench through the grime. 

“I’ll have the maids come and clean it this afternoon.” He reached to the wall nearest to the door and flicked on the lights. They flickered and hummed faintly to life, spreading a sickly yellow glow across the floor and the old, creaky bed in the corner. 

The sheets hadn’t been changed since the 1940’s when they’d shut the room down. He’d need to change those, too. 

Mavis was of a different opinion. “Like we should bend our backs over this,” she snarked, tilting her head to stare at the ceiling. There were little patches from where leaks were worst. They’d surely leak again. 

Dracula sighed. “They’re our guests, Bed Bug.”

“They’re not  _ guests _ . They’re… intruders.”

“We’re letting them in.”

“Prisoners, then.”

“I’m not keeping them,” he snorted. “They can, and should, leave whenever.”

She crossed her arms. “I don’t like it.”

“And you think I do?” He did a quick circle around the room, making sure the floors at least held firm. They squeaked, but didn’t bend. A good sign. “We’ll put Van Helsing in the room across from her. It’s got a lower ceiling but it’ll be good enough.” 

“I don’t like it,” she said again, scuffing her foot on the dusty ground. 

“Mavis-”

“You should just take everything and let them die somewhere far away,” she muttered. She extended her hand and flexed her claws. “I’m not totally against murder. Never tasted real human blood.”

Ignoring her griping, Dracula inhaled deep and let out a long, low breath. 

It came out in a fog. 

“Might need some heaters up here, too,” he said, just realizing the chill that nipped his skin. 

His daughter scoffed and pushed past him, and he heard her stomping down the stairs, anger in every awful  _ CLOMP CLOMP CLOMP _ . He flicked off the light. “Oy,” he groaned, closing the door behind him. 

What a day it would be.

* * *

 

The cab driver watched her and her grandfather in the rearview mirror with sympathetic looks. When they'd said, "Hotel Transylvania," he clucked his tongue and shook his head. The rest of the ride was spent under his pitiful gaze. 

"What are you goin' there for, lady?" he asked. 

She was holding a bag in her lap, and she held it closer to her chest. "We're... guests..." she said, carefully. 

"Huh," he said. "Heard the Vamp was taking humans in."

"Yeah," she said. 

"Huh," he said again. "Best of luck to you, ma'am. Not sure what he does to the humans who go in but," and he shrugged, shifting his fingers against the wheel, "I never take a chance with them. Not putting my neck out, you know?"

"Yeah," she said. "I know."

She knew. Better than most, she knew. And the sinking in her stomach only grew and grew and grew the farther they went in. She kept her eyes on her feet. There was a nagging need to tell the stranger driving them through the forest paths exactly what she was doing there. To share with someone who had sympathy in their eyes. Not like her grandfather, who was stationed on the floor beside her, a scarf over his body to hide the machinery around it. 

_ I'm going there because I'm _ engaged, she wanted to say. 

_ I'm technically supposed to marry a Vampire. He could kill me. Nothing can save _ me, she wanted to scream. 

_Help,_ she wanted to beg.  _Please. Help._

But she didn't do any of those things. It was worthless. There wasn't much that could stop legal wheels from spinning. If she didn't show up, they'd likely find ways to take her estate, and her life would be ruined without so much setting her eyes on the Vampire who'd do it. 

And she wanted to see him. 

Wanted to look at him. 

Wanted to see the man who was intent on ripping her life into bite-sized pieces. It would make it all that much easier to hate him. To despise. To want to kill. 

"You got any plans when you get there?" the cab driver asked. 

_Yes,_ she wanted to say. Because she did. 

She had a half dozen stakes in the bag on her lap. Oh yes. She had plans. 

She would win this case. Or she would take him down. Finish a legacy. 

Make her grandfather see her. 

"No," she said, instead, hugging the bag tight enough to feel the wooden points prick through the fabric and into her arm. "Nothing interesting."

"Shame," he said, turning down a dirt road, pointing forward over the dash. "You have a few minutes to figure it out, though. If you wanted to think about it."

She looked where he was pointing and-

-and there it was.

Rising from the trees, puncturing the sky. The looming castle on the mountains. A smudge of an imposing shadow, just beyond the ridge. Her breath caught in her throat and she ducked her head, reaching up to her lapel to make sure the top button was secure. 

"Ah," said her grandfather, and she jumped at the voice, turning to see him blinking up through the glass of his window. "I've waited too long to see that." And he smiled a wretched smile. "You'd best be careful, Dear."

She closed her eyes for the rest of the ride, and didn't open them again until she felt the car rumble to a stop in front of the great steps that lead up, up, up towards what she could only assume was her less-than-glorious end. 

* * *

 

Dracula tried to watch for her all night but gave up sometime around 3 am and filed paperwork instead. The act of shuffling through numbers was soothing, and the sound of his own erratic breathing slowly tapered away.

The maids let him know sometime around 4 am that the room was clean. 

“But there’ll be a leak if it rains,” they warned him. “Can’t patch that up well enough without a carpenter, Your Grace.”

“That’s fine,” he said. 

Like hell if he cared. 

Around 4:30 his daughter joined him in what must have been a sort of an olive branch. “I tried to watch for her, too,” she said, her voice shaking. “Couldn’t do it.”

Dracula reached across tax documents and took her hand. 

They send Dennis to bed at around 5 am and Johnny, who’d been helping out with the guests for hours (and Dracula would have to remember to thank him later) went upstairs to tuck the kid in bed. Poor Dennis was convinced that Van Helsings were after them all, and it had been a challenge to seperate 

“Papa Drac,” the boy had said, pressing his face to Dracula’s knees, “stay safe! Okay? Stay safe!”

“Of course I will…” He leaned down, kissing the boys twisting curls. They tickled his nose. “I’ll be fine, my Tarantula.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.” 

His friends visit at some point before they all turn in. 

Frank shakes his hand. Wayne slaps his back. Martha drops by with a bottle of Blood Beaters, and he thanks her with a smile and a promise to be careful. 

He very nearly relaxed until 6 am passes and a guard runs up to the desk, heaving and panting, his armor clattering. “Sir,” he said, pointing towards the door where the first silken beams of light were stretching against the floor. “They’re here.”

Dracula fixed his vest and cape with shivering hands. 

Time.

It was time. 

* * *

 

Ericka arrives in the early hours of the morning, while the sun is beginning to burn away the cloying dew and he knows it’s on purpose. 

She has little power here, and he’s so wildly aware when her car pulls around to the front to where he cannot follow that its wholly intentional. 

Dracula stands beneath the shadow of his hotel, standing too tall, too cold. He can play this game, too. She’s a hunter, but so is he, and he’s not so humble to think he wouldn’t win. 

Van Helsing himself is the first to appear. He looks far too gone to be much help to anyone, especially himself. His body rolled around and- and-

-and not  _ his _ body. No. A contraption of sorts. 

Van Helsing looked up the steps to Dracula’s dark form, and he opened his mouth like he wanted to say something but thought better of it and turned towards the car, saying something to someone Dracula could not see. 

And then someone new emerged. And in the rising day, her white clothes blazed an inky red. And then the rest of her followed along, turning just so, squinting up the enormous size of the castle before guiding her eyes down and onto him. 

She wasn’t what he’d expected. Not old but not young, either. He tried to see if he could find the rotting teeth and balding hair and was frustrated when neither emerged. She hefted her bags up into her hands, pacing up the path to the stairs. 

Her eyes stayed on his- stayed on his all the way up the stairs until he was standing in front of Dracula. She came up to his shoulders, but against the sun, eyes frosted, she loomed. 

“You came.” 

“Don’t sound so surprised.” She cocked her chin. “I’ve got my entire life to worry about. And in your hands.”

“You’d think you’d have expected that by now. Considering your… lineage.”

The barb hits, and a burner behind her eyes lights. He stands to the side, motioning towards the dim entrance of the hotel. “We have rooms ready for you.” 

And then he smiles. 

It’s his turn to play the game. His fangs are so purposefully pushed to view that when she flinches back, just an inch, as subtle as a leaf flicking, he caught it and preened darkly. He gestures again. “Well?”

She pushed back her shoulders. “Of course.” But before she could, his arm reached out, blocking her. She caught an almost overwhelming wave off his towering profile; the rust of blood, leather, cleaning products. He leaned over her. 

“Van Helsing,” he said. 

She straightened her back and regarded him cooley. “Dracula.” 

And so it began. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 


End file.
